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fees for one year until March 31, 2012. The three fees currently proposed for suspension are public buildings, law enforcement, and solid waste facilities. Pursuant to the county's ordinance adoption procedures, staff advertised for an impact fee suspension public hearing to be held on March 15, 2011. Besides advertising for the public hearing, staff also prepared draft impact fee suspension ordinances. Copies of those ordinances are attached to this staff report. , To provide maximum flexibility for the Board when considering extending the impact fee suspension, staff included all five of the currently suspended impact fees in the suspension extension public hearing advertisement. That will allow the Board to extend the suspension of any or all of the five currently suspended impact fees. ANALYSIS As of this time, the county's impact fee suspension hm, been in- effact for almst two years, During that. time, building permit activity declined and then flattened out. For example, the number of single- family building permit applications in the unincorporated county and the City of Vero Beach declined from 301 in the:pre-suspension April 1, 2008 — January 31; 2009 period to 194 in the April 1, 2009 — January 31, 2010 suspension period and then slightly increased to 197 in the April 1, 2010 — January 31, 2011 suspension period. Given those figures, one can conclude that either the suspension had little or no effect or that building permit activity would have been even lower without the suspension. While the extension of the impact fee suspension will result in additional unrealized revenues, the anticipated revenue loss will not be substantial due to the slow pace of development that the county is currently experiencing. Further, this loss of revenue will not have a substantial adverse effect on the ability to fund capital needs in these areas. Comparison of Selected Impact Fee Rates Before and After Suspension Over the past two years, the suspended impact fees have resulted in lower impact fee payments for both residential and commercial projects. During that time, however, commercial projects fared better, with an average impact fee reduction of 30% to 50%, compared to an average of 12% to 15% reduction for residential projects. The reason for the difference between commercial and residential is that only 6 of the 9 impact fees imposed by the county apply to commercial projects, while all nine apply to residential projects. Since the five suspended fees all apply to both residential and commercial projects, the suspension resulted in commercial projects paying only one impact fee (transportation), while residential projects paid four impact fees. 2 64